First Experiences
First Experiences is the first book of the Middle School Experience series. It follows seven preteen girls through their first day (and first few weeks) of middle school. While some of the girls enjoy their time at the new school, some of the girls immediately take a disliking to it. School is in session, and some students are experiencing culture shock. This culture shock is middle school, the most vulnerable place for a preteen girl. Some girls adjust to these changes very well; Chloe Winters joins the drama club, Arabella Wilson develops a crush on a classmate, and Leah Harrison makes a fashionable and sophisticated friend. However, sixth grade is a bit rocky for others; Jessie Sanchez feels awkward and out-of-place around her new soccer teammates, and Alex Sanders worries that she might lose her best friend. Sixth grade isn’t easy for everyone, and that first experience will determine whether or not the entire middle school experience is one to remember or one to forget. Summary The story begins with Jessie waiting at the bus stop that is taking her and some other students to Lakewood Middle School. She is nervous because the majority of the people waiting look older and intimidating. A few minutes later, Jessie's best friends, Chloe, Freddy, and Robbie arrive to the bus stop. The bus arrives to take them to school, and they chat optimistically about how middle school will be like. As they chat, Jessie thinks about her plans for sixth grade--to be the star of the soccer team. Inside Lakewood Middle School, Alex, Leah, and Ellie stand near the front of the building both in awe and fear. While Leah is somewhat excited about the first day of school, Ellie is terrified and Alex is annoyed. However, Alex is glad to see her friends again, who she hadn't seen for the entire summer because she had gone out of the state for vacation. An intercom announcement instructs all the new sixth graders to go to the auditorium for an assembly, but Alex and her friends don't know where the auditorium is. Leah sees a group of eighth graders and persuades her reluctant friends to ask them for directions, but the older students end up humiliating the girls. Eventually, Alex spots it and the girls head towards there. At the assembly, the sixth graders are introduced to Principal David Watson and Vice-Principal Jennifer Clayton. The two talk to the students about what to expect at Lakewood before they have to go to their homeroom classes. After the assembly, Alex and her friends decide to go to their homeroom classes, and on the way, Alex spots her best friend Marylin and decides to meet up with her. Leah and Ellie decide not to, and Alex thinks that is strange. When Alex goes up to talk with Marylin, she notices that Marylin is dressed fancier than usual. Marylin introduces Alex to her new friend Gabby, who takes an immediate dislike to Alex. Gabby purposely brings up things that she and Marylin had done over the summer, and when Alex tries to get into the conversation, she is ignored. Eventually, Marylin and Gabby walk away without saying goodbye, and Alex is hurt and confused by Marylin's behavior. In homeroom, Arabella is hanging out with some girls from her elementary school when she spots Robbie. She immediately develops a crush on him and with a little prompting from her friends, she decides to introduce herself to him. However, she is a little turned off when she learns that Robbie is taking all advanced classes this year plus an elective in computer science. Not wanting to give up on Robbie yet, Arabella decided to lie and say that she is an advanced student, too. She immediately regrets it, but hopes that her lie helps her earn Robbie's interest. Alex's first day of school turns out to be not so great; she gets lost finding her classes and is disappointed that she has none of her classes with her friends. Luckily, she finds her third class, social studies, but remains disappointed when she realizes that her friends aren't in that class either. Her teacher, Ms. Jaffe, makes her sit in an assigned seat. When class begins, Ms. Jaffe introduces herself and talks about her class, which requires the students to work on extensive projects. However, the class is redeemed when Alex learns that Ms. Jaffe is a historian and is willing to form relationships with her students. After Ms. Jaffe talks about her class, she allows the class to chat with their new classmates. The girl sitting next to Alex introduces herself as Jessie and tries to make conversation, but Alex is not interested. After class, Alex goes to her locker to retrieve her lunchbox, but has trouble unlocking it. Jessie, who ends up having the locker next to Alex's, decides to help Alex. She invites Alex to eat lunch with her and her friends, but Alex declines. At lunch, Alex meets up with Leah and Ellie, and finds out that they have most of their classes together. As Alex begins to eat, she spots Marylin sitting with Gabby and the Popular Sensations and immediately goes to their table to retrieve her friend. She is insulted by the Popular Sensations, and Marylin strangely declines Alex's offer to sit with her. Outraged, Alex rants to Leah and Ellie. Leah and Ellie then confess that Marylin has changed and doesn't want to be friends with them anymore. They explain that during the annual Vacation Bible School at their church, Marylin had gotten to know Clarissa and Gabby, and soon became a part of their group. Upset, Alex loses her appetite. During lunch, Chloe and Robbie decide to attend the club fair that is being held outside the cafeteria. Chloe is ecstatic about joining the drama club. Unfortunately, the line to sign up for the drama club is very long. While in line, the two bump into Arabella. However, things are rocky between Chloe and Arabella when it seems like Arabella is jealous of Chloe and when Chloe makes a comment about how Arabella won't have time to be in the drama club due to her being an advanced student. The girls finally reach the front of the line and sign up for the drama club right before lunch ends. After lunch, Robbie walks to his class, leaving Chloe and Arabella to walk to their classes together. The girls walk together awkwardly before Arabella decided to walk to her class by herself and Chloe begins to feel bad about her comments. She hopes that she can befriend Arabella. After lunch, Leah goes to math class, the only class she doesn't have with Ellie. She is a little nervous about being by herself, but her fears are quickly squashed once she gets to know Gail Edwards, the girl sitting next to her. The girls find out that they have a lot in common, and quickly become friends. After school, Alex takes the bus home. Marylin, who lives in Alex's neighborhood, also decides to take the bus home, and Alex confronts her on her recent behavior. To her dismay, Marylin seems to believe that the Popular Sensations' attitude towards Alex wasn't that bad and calls her out on her immaturity. The next day, Arabella talks to Gail about her crush on Robbie, but Gail is disappointed that Arabella lied to Robbie about being an advanced student. Still, Gail advises her to continue to get to know Robbie and see if they click together. During homeroom, Arabella and Robbie talk about how their first day of school was and what other clubs that they signed up for during the fair yesterday. To Arabella's dismay, Robbie has signed up for clubs that were different from the ones she had signed up for. She decides to lie and say that she had forgotten to sign up for the science club. At first, Robbie is unconvinced that Arabella is serious about joining the science club, but eventually believes her and invites her to the first science club meeting of the year. Arabella agrees to attend, but feels even worse that her lies are spiraling out of control. On Friday, Leah decides to invite Gail to eat lunch with her and her friends. When Alex sees what Gail looks like, she fears that Gail is like Clarissa and will steal her friends away from her, and becomes hostile. Her opinion on Gail sours even more when Gail seems more interested in talking about boys and fashion magazines. Gail tries to make conversation, but Alex acts rude towards her, which angers Leah and Ellie. For the entire lunch period, Alex feels left out. The following Tuesday, Chloe and Arabella attend the first drama club meeting. They are a little nervous that they're not going to succeed and are afraid that the older students will be rude to them, but once they are introduced to the drama teacher, Angela Thomas, they begin to feel more comfortable. Ms. Thomas begins to discuss the club in great detail, which furthers the girls' interest in the club. Near the end of the club, Chloe gets to know Arabella, and they realize that they have a lot in common besides being friends with Robbie. Arabella invites Chloe to a sleepover that she is throwing during the weekend, and Chloe decides to go and bring Jessie with her. Chloe is glad that she is finding a friend who is similar to her. On the same day, Jessie and Freddy attend the first day of tryouts for the sixth grade soccer teams. After being split up into boys and girls, Jessie attempts to make friends with some of the girls, but they are rude to her. The girls are introduced to Coach Edwin, the girls' soccer coach, and are instructed to show off their skills by playing a one-on-one game with her. The coach immediately takes a liking to Jessie, and Jessie begins to believe that she has a chance to make the team. On Thursday, Alex learns that Marylin is having a sleepover and invites herself, Leah, and Ellie to Marylin's house. On Friday, she learns that Leah and Ellie are actually going to a sleepover that Gail's friend is hosting, and is hurt that Gail didn't invite her and her friends didn't tell her about it. Later, Jessie invites Alex to a sleepover her friend Arabella is hosting, but Alex declines. After school, Alex prepares for Marylin's sleepover by packing some DVDs of cartoons that she likes and a whoopee cushion to use if Gabby (who was invited) is rude to her. At seven, she goes to Marylin's house, and to her horror, the Popular Sensations are the only guests. The Popular Sensations are only interested in reading magazines, gossiping about boys, and being rude to Alex. Alex is shocked when Marylin does nothing to stop this and instead scolds Alex for making snide comments. After a conversation about the girls' summer plans goes sour, Alex decides to leave. She lies to Marylin's mother, Sandra, about why she is leaving so Marylin doesn't get in trouble for the Popular Sensations' behavior. Sandra decides to walk Alex home, and when they get there, Sandra decides to hang out with Alex's mom for a few minutes while Alex goes to bed. Alex thinks about all the events that had happened tonight and begins to doubt her and Marylin's friendship. During that night, Leah and Ellie attend Arabella's sleepover, the sleepover that Gail invited them to. When they arrive, they end up meeting Jessie and Chloe, who are also guests. The girls decide to introduce themselves, and Leah finds that Arabella and Chloe are very relatable to her. Ellie and Jessie feel left out at first, but as the night goes on, they begin to come out of their shells. Leah gives the girls (except for Jessie) makeovers and helps Arabella sort her wardrobe out to give her a nerd-chic makeover for Robbie. Leah feels at home with the girls and hopes that she can hang out with them again. Arabella's dilemma with Robbie has hit a low; she attended the first science club meeting, but Robbie discovered that she didn't know anything about science and that she's not an advanced student. At school, Robbie is polite to Arabella, but not as much as he was before. On Monday morning, Arabella wears a nerd-chic outfit that Leah picked out for her, but it fails to get Robbie's attention. Defeated, Arabella talks to Chloe and Gail about her problem. The girls advise her to tell Robbie the truth and to be herself. Arabella decides to follow their advice, but she doesn't speak to Robbie right away. Meanwhile, Alex is having a bad day due to the events that had happened on Friday. After school that day, Jessie introduces Alex to Robbie and Freddy. While Alex is packing up her things at her locker, she overhears the Popular Sensations talking about her, and Marylin joins into the teasing, saying that she was glad that Alex had gone away for the summer and says that she was obligated to hang out with Alex because their mothers are best friends. Alex snaps and gets into a verbal altercation with Marylin, which quickly turns physical. Ms. Jaffe breaks up the fight and Clarissa and Marylin blame it on Alex. Alex is sent to Principal Watson's office and the principal calls her parents. When her parents question Alex about the fight, Alex lies and says that she had fought Clarissa instead of Marylin to avoid drama. Unsurprisingly, this doesn't sit well with her parents and she is grounded for two weeks. At school, Alex has to spend the rest of the week in morning/afternoon detention. Jessie and Freddy attend the callback meeting for the soccer teams. Coach Edwin instructs the twenty-six remaining girls to form two teams to play a soccer game; the best players from each team will make the soccer team. Jessie joins a team, but most of the girls are rude to her. Her team wins, but Sally and her friends criticize her teamwork skills and mock her for being Coach Edwin's favorite player. After the game, Coach Edwin picks eleven girls to be on team. Jessie makes the team, but so does Sally and two of her friends. Freddy makes the boys' team. The next day, Arabella apologizes to Robbie for lying to him. To her surprise, Robbie understands why she lied, and confesses that he had been afraid of pushing her away because they both like different things. They both confess their feelings for each other and decide to stay friends for now until they get to know each other more. Arabella is happy about things working out with Robbie and hopes that they can become more than friends in the future. After being sent to the principal's office, Alex's life is miserable. She had lost Marylin to the Popular Sensations, and she had lost Leah and Ellie to Gail. She decides to become closer to Jessie. She tells Jessie about her problems, and Jessie reassures her that the Popular Sensations aren't worth her time and that Marylin isn't worthy of her friendship. Alex decides to eat lunch with Jessie, not knowing that Jessie had befriended Leah and Ellie. She is shocked that all of her friends are in one place, but decides to go along with it anyway. However, she is not happy about having to eat lunch with Gail, Arabella, and Chloe, the latter two whom she pegged as shallow girly girls. As the lunch period goes on, Arabella and Chloe try to make conversation with Alex, and to Alex's surprise, they accept her for who she is. Alex confesses to Leah and Ellie that she had been avoiding them because she felt left out, and they apologize for their behavior; Leah confesses that she was the one who gave Gail the idea to leave Alex out of the sleepover. Gail tells Alex about how she had tried to be friendly to her, but had given up, and Alex begins to feel bad for her cold behavior towards her. For the rest of the lunch period, she gets to know her new friends and begins to feel happy again. Though Alex is still upset about losing Marylin, she is glad that she has found people who are loyal to her and have her back. The epilogue at the end of the story details Jessie, Leah, Chloe, Arabella, and Alex's points of view about the first few weeks of sixth grade. While Chloe, Leah, and Arabella are content with how the first few weeks have gone, Jessie is disappointed that the girls on the soccer team dislike her, and Alex still seems kind of bitter about losing Marylin. Characters (in order of appearance) * Jessie Sanchez * Chloe Winters * Robbie James * Freddy Hamilton * Alex Sanders * Leah Harrison * Ellie Jackson * Principal Watson * Vice-Principal Clayton * Marylin Roberts * Gabby Evans * Arabella Wilson * Kristina Jaffe * Clarissa Simpson * Lindsay Shapiro * Mary-Kate Lucas * Gail Edwards * Angela Thomas * Coach Edwin * Sally Cantle * Leslie Morgan * Katelyn Sanders * Sandra Roberts * Carrie Sanders * Coach Johnson * Camryn Lovett * Jenny Partridge * Marcia Gonzalez Trivia *This is the first appearance of the majority of the main characters. Important characters that are missing are Daphne, Maryann, and Regina, who don't appear until the story ''New Girls. '' *This story was originally going to be a prequel, but the creator decided to change it to the first book because it made more sense that way. *This story has been rewritten three times. The first two times, most of the characters seemed to lack personalities and came off kind-of unlikeable, but the third (and most recent) time, it developed the characters more. The final product was completed in August 2015. Category:Stories